CleanWorld

Overview
The world around us is getting more polluted. As student environmentalists, we need to realize that keeping our planet clean begins locally in our own neighborhoods. When presented with environmental choices in our own neighborhoods, we can make choices that will improve or degrade our community environments. In CleanWorld the choices players make have a direct effect on their neighborhood environment. The choices we make locally ultimately have an effect globally.

As players move through their 3-dimensional neighborhood they are given tasks relating to cleaning up their environment. This environmental e-game is a fun way to expose and familiarize young people with recycling and conservation while heightening their awareness of making good decisions for the future health of our environment.

Along the way you will earn points each time you collect trash and dispose of it, conserve a wasteful water source, or contribute to cleaner air. You will have different choices for each item. The best choice for completing the task will gain you the most points.

Instructional Objective:
The instructional objective of CleanWorld is to provide a simulated environment where players can make choices, good or bad, and experience the consequences of those choices in a fun and challenging game format.

We hope the players develop an understanding of the relationship between the environmental choices they make and the quality of life they enjoy. Players will make decisions when confronted with environmental issues that occur in their own neighborhoods. These would include choices regarding recycling, pollution and waste.

Ultimately, players will complete basic tasks and make decisions that will create a better (or worse) living environment. It is our hope as game designers that this game enables players to develop a habit of making positive environmental choices around their homes.

Learners
CleanWorld was created for primary students from 1st to 3rd grade. Primary students are extremely impressionable and are easily convinced of wrongs found in their communities and the world, especially when it has to do with their future. Hopefully, through the concepts learned and reinforced in this game, they will become crusaders for the cause, sharing their knowledge with their parents and practicing good environmental practices at home and in the community.

Context of Use
CleanWorld was created for use in a school setting, but would also be available for anyone to download and play. Students could complete the game as individuals or work in groups sharing computers. The game could be used in learning stations or in large groups as a classroom competition on a projector screen. The game is designed to play over and over again, giving the students the opportunity to better their scores each time the game is played and advance to the next level of difficulty. The few tasks at the beginning of the introductory level will act as gameplay tutorials for the user to learn how to move around the neighborhood and manipulate their character using keyboard commands and the mouse.

Scope
CleanWorld is designed to teach and reinforce best practices for community residents to create, maintain, and live in a cleaner environment. The game is about making choices that will affect the livability of the players’ environment. This simulated environment will represent a model of a real neighborhood. The neighborhood would include residential areas, parks, schools, and commercial zones.

The game will start with a default neighborhood map that the players can use to play all three game levels. Additional maps representing local areas will be available for download. These ‘Neighborhood Packs’ will be based on real-world communities (See above). If a Neighborhood Pack is available for a player’s local community, that neighborhood can be downloaded and used in the game. Local streets, buildings, landmarks, parks, etc. will be modeled in the neighborhood map to provide the players with more realistic game play and a higher interest level.
 * Mapping**



The game’s play areas will focus on three levels of play:

• **Kid Level (Beginners)**: here the players will be presented with basic environmental cleanup tasks and decisions that young people could carry out. • **Teen Level (Intermediate)**: here players will be presented with more complex and difficult environmental cleanup tasks and decisions. These would be geared more towards what teenagers would be interested in or capable of doing. • **Adult Level (Advanced)**: here players will be presented with tasks and decisions that adults face daily and are capable of completing.

Object of the Game
The goal for the beginning player will to be to achieve the most points by completing environmental tasks and/or making good environmental choices in the game. At the beginning level, the player will be presented with (n) tasks to complete. These beginning tasks will be completed linearly with each previously completed task reintroduced as an optional part of the next task. For example, Task 2 involves picking up and recycling cans in the neighborhood. Successful completion of this task leads to Task 3: finding sources of wasted water (i.e. running garden hoses, broken sprinklers, etc.) However, while completing Task 3, the player will be encouraged to continue picking up cans for recycling along the way and rewarded accordingly for environmental multi-tasking.

Competing Products






Design Details
The overall look and feel of CleanWorld is similar to the animated look of Fatworld (www.fatworld.com). The neighborhood maps will be cartoonish and colorful. The player will begin the game on foot, walking throughout the neighborhood as they complete the game’s tasks. They will be permitted to walk not only on the streets or sidewalks, but also across lawns. The character will need to either walk around obstacles or interact with them in some way. For instance, if a character comes to a gate, he/she will need to either navigate around the fence or open the gate and walk through. Players will sometimes have the ability to enter houses or buildings within the game environment.

The music in the game will be lively and fun. The sound effects will relate directly to what the player is doing in the game at the time. So, if a player turns off a water hose, a squeaky spigot would occur.



At the beginning of the game, players will create their own character. This will be similar to any number of character creation components of games. The Mii example below provides a good representation of what this would be like in CleanWorld. Characters will be customizable in several different areas such as hair, skin, and clothing color, and facial features.
 * Description of all user-manipulable variables in the game**


 * Description of all output variables displayed**

The Eco-Bonus Dollars screen: as components of a given task are completed, the player earns ‘Eco-Bonus Dollars.’ If they miss an opportunity by ignoring a previously learned task, as it is reintroduced, the eco meter moves toward the red and the ‘dollar amounts missed’ value increases. If the player chooses to multi-task and complete previously learned tasks as they are completing the newest task, the eco-meter shifts toward the green and the ‘dollar amounts missed’ decreases.

The Map inset at the bottom corner of the screen: provides the player with their current location in the neighborhood and visual clues to the location of incomplete tasks at their current level.

The Task list menu: shows the player which tasks have been completed, and which tasks still need to be finished at that level. Completed tasks will show a checkmark next to them when they have been successfully completed.

The neighborhood screen: will shift in the appropriate direction as the player approaches a screen border. This allows the neighborhood to be much larger than the constraints of the game window.


 * Description of the initial or default state of all variables**


 * The Neighborhood:** the nighborhood will default to the player’s home at the center of the screen. Tasks begin and end as the player leaves and returns home.
 * The Eco-Meter:** this meter defaults to the yellow center point. As the player earns or loses Eco-Dollars the meter shifts towards the green (earns) or the red (loses).
 * The Map:** the map default view is of the player’s home and surrounding area.
 * The Eco-Dollar Menu:** player starts at $0.00. All money earned in the game, is retained to the conclusion of the level. Each new level started resets this menu to $0.00.


 * Sample screens showing a sequence of situation, learner input, and result

**


 * Sample screens showing introductory material, high score pages, etc.**

//Technical Elements//

Blender will be used to develop the images, render, and power the game environment. This is a multi-platform software engine that allows developers to use a single development application for all design tasks such as 3-d modeling, texture mapping, environment rendering and motion scripting. Blender is also compatible with many other application file formats. So game components could be developed in other applicaitons such as 3dStudio or Lightwave, for example, then imported into the Blender engine for further use.
 * Specific software needed to author the game**

CleanWorld will be developed for both Macintosh OS X (PPC and Intel) and Windows XP/Vista. Blender also supports Linux (i386), Linux (PPC), FreeBSD 5.4 (i386), SGI Irix 6.5, and Sun Solaris 2.8 (sparc). So the game could eventually be ported to any of these other platforms if the demand was there to do so.
 * Platform(s) the game would be developed for**

All graphics for the game can be designed and rendered in Blender which relies on the Open GL format. This is a cross-platform GUI system, so compatibility is suited towards the intended audience of players. If graphics need to be imported the application supports the following image formats: TGA, JPG, PNG, OpenEXR, DPX, Cineon, Radiance HDR, Iris, SGI Movie, IFF, AVI and Quicktime GIF, TIFF, PSD, MOV (Windows and Mac OS X). The audio file format will be .wav which is also cross platform. Sound files can be directly imported into Blender for use in the game. If outside sound production needs occur, Pro Tools LE/TDM, by Digidesign, can be used to record, arrange, mix, produce, and export .wav files for import into Blender.
 * File formats of graphics and sounds**

As stated above, Blender is able to export its game engine and files for multiple platforms – Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista being key.
 * Method to accommodate multiple platforms (if that's being done)**

Since CleanWorld will be a downloadable, client-based application, all data for saved games – character data, game progress, and scores will be saved to an on-site server which will allow players to access their saved game from any computer on campus that has the CleanWorld client installed.
 * Data structures for any files used to save the game state**

Motivational Issues
 Keller’s ARCS model was used to help design CleanWorld. The elements of **Attention** that we addressed include: audio, graphics, animations, motion menus, vivid colors, additional activities and different levels of play.

Perceptual arousal in the game is maintained by the use of different audio elements corresponding to specific game events. For example, when a player earns Eco-Dollars, a cash register sound effect occurs, and when the countdown timer approaches zero, the background music’s tempo increases. Audio, animation, graphics, and motion menus give the player a unique environment to explore.

Variety is a strong element for motivation. Our gamers are given three different levels of gameplay difficulty. **In addition, the player is allowed to decide which tasks they will undertake during the game. Another variation for gameplay allows the player to pollute the neighborhood as quickly as possible in order to lose the game in the shortest amount of time. A negative ‘high score’ wins that game mode.**


 * Relavance** is addressed through the player’s ability to download and play the game using a model of their local neighborhood. Street names, landmarks, and school sites will be accurately represented in these map models in order to make the game more immediately familiar to the player. Allowing the player to create, personalize, and customize their avatar in the beginning stages of the game is another powerful way to build relevance.

Players gain **Confidence** in their ‘eco-abilities’ as they experience success with the challenging eco-tasks. The eco-tasks start off easy, but become more challenging as the player progresses through the game levels. These levels require learning, give opportunities for success, and develop personal responsibility.


 * Satisfaction** as a motivation involves allowing the player to ‘do the right thing’ as it relates to their local environment. Success in the game prompts positive feedback, higher scores and an opportunity to demonstrate these behaviors in the real world. Equity is maintained through the use of outcomes that are consistent for all players.


 * Design Process**

When we started to think about designing CleanWorld, we used our board game as a template for design. However, after discussion among our group and Bernie, we realized that our game design was 2-dimensional. To quote Bernie, our egame had ‘look and feel of an onscreen test rather than anything a child might want to play.’ The electronic format allowed us to add another dimension to the game planning process. Once we let go of the notion that this game actually had to be created by us, we let our imaginations run a little wild. The group got online and looked at other successful and not-so-successful games already available (see examples above) and chose a format based on what we thought our target audience would enjoy. Rich came up with the concept of an environmental cleanup game. We were able to design, redesign, include, and exclude ideas and thoughts over a period of weeks without our storyboard being used by others (thankfully). This gave us a room that felt like an actual ‘design studio’ that we could all access and meet in periodically. We were also able to get some valuable feedback from others in our department who were interested in what we were doing.

Using Keller’s ARCS model and the definitions of the components of that model really helped in keeping our design process orderly, functional, timely, and successful. We hope by addressing many of the components of this model, our game gains a player’s attention, is relevant to the player, builds a player’s confidence in completing positive environmental tasks, and ultimately satisfies the ‘enjoyment factor’ of game playing.